In the 18th century silver more and more became the tangible
evidence of wealth, and men a women carried their hard-earned and carefully
hoarded coins to the silversmith to be made into usable objects. Theses
pieces retained their intrinsic value while being used for celebrations,
daily routines or mere display. It is from the American colonies that we get
the term American Coin Silver. Although this phrase is commonly linked to
simple pointed-end, round-end or fiddle-back spoons, early American
silversmiths were, like their English and European counterparts, producing
church silver, tankards, beakers, tea sets and tea caddies, trays and
salvers, porringers, braziers, candlesticks, etc. The word coin as it
pertains to these articles of American silver mainly defines the source of
the raw material: Until the 19th century, coins provided the silver makers
of nearly all countries with raw material when bullion was scarce, but since
silver was not mined commercially in the United States until the 1850’s,
coins were the American silversmith’s major resource.
Silver manufacturers were soon trying to outdo one another, with one
American maker offering 20 different types of individual place setting
spoons, 12 different forks and ten different knives. In addition to
individual dinner forks, medium forks, dessert forks, fish forks, oyster
forks, lobster forks, terrapin forks, salad forks, berry forks, pie forks,
fruit forks and ice cream forks, there were specialized forks for serving
beef, sardines, bread, olives, asparagus, pickles, etc. The list of
specialized forks, spoons, flat servers and knives is almost endless, and
reflects, in part, the spiritual need of Victorians to demonstrate the
superiority of Man over all other creatures.
The process of extracting and refining silver dates from the third
millennium BC, and the metal was well represented in the wealth of
Mesopotamia, Babylon, Egypt, classical Greece and ancient Rome. Silver’s
unique properties have made it a wonderful medium for the decorative arts,
and its intrinsic value as a precious metal has made it the ultimate and
everlasting recyclable. As fashion changed over the decades and centuries,
silver has been melted and reshaped into new forms, and in times of economic
crisis, for individuals and nations, it has been converted into coin. Its
reflective qualities have made it an ideal material for the display of power,
wealth or reverence, in palaces, cathedrals, temples and the great houses of
Asia, Europe and the Americas.
Etruscan spoons dating from 700 BC are not unlike the ones we use today, and
knives were always present at the table, but it was in 16th century Italy
that forks began to replace fingers for conveying food to the mouth. As the
fork’s popularity spread to France, great changes in manners began. Foods
that had previously been eaten by dipping fingers or bread into a common
bowl came to be eaten with spoons and forks from individual plates, and by
the late 1600’s there existed different plates for different foods. Further,
individual chairs replaced benches at the table. This revolution, of sorts,
greatly affected the silversmiths’ output, and before the close of the 17th
century silversmiths found themselves making large matching services for
their wealthy patrons. It was the beginning of table silver as we know it
today.
Though we may lament that much old silver has been lost to the whims of
fashion or the loss of fortune, we must also remember that the nineteenth
century saw a taste for collecting antique silver: Pieces once melted and
refashioned began to be collected for their aesthetic appeal. The same
period saw a burgeoning spirit of inquiry and research, and as the 19th
century gave way to the 20th, scholarly publications and exhibitions brought
new information, and exciting pieces of silver, to light. Silver has a past,
a present and a future, and, in many ways, it lives in all three.
Nineteenth-century silver manufacturers had placed great emphasis on
industrialization and modern manufacturing techniques, but the early years
of the 20th century saw a move to widen the gulf between artist and
industrialist. The Arts & Crafts Movement, which saw its beginnings in
Europe and spread quickly across the Atlantic, put emphasis on the
individual craftsman. The movement saw the important role that craft can
play in the “humanizing” of society. The workers in this tradition have
aspired to lofty goals, taking the silversmith back to role of artisan. The
period between the World Wars brought about great stylistic changes, with
the introduction of “Modernism”, later termed the “Art Deco” style. As we
begin the 21st century, these objects too are finding their place in museums
and private collections.
It was during the Renaissance that silver began to become important for
display: An impressive show of silver objects was a telling measure of a
person’s wealth and social standing. In the English court, New Year’s gifts
of silver were customarily exchanged, and silver was of foremost importance
for state occasions. At the same time, silver was the preferred material for
the wealthiest aristocratic and merchant classes. The social, rather than
the economic, aspects of silver were taking shape.
At the beginning of the 19th century, silver services were comparatively
simple. However, rising middle and merchant classes on both sides of the
Atlantic, as well rich industrialists in the United States, created a great
demand for silver objects. The urge to display affluence, along with impetus
given by exhibitions in 1851 and 1862, led not only to more ornate styles
but a wide range of new serving and individual pieces. This Victorian
explosion of tableware seems to have begun simply enough, with the fashion
for separate fish knives. Followed, of course by the addition of the fish
fork. By the 1870’s, dinner consisted of from five to eighteen courses, and,
as one etiquette book stated, the guest could expect “a bewildering array of
glass goblets, wine and champagne glasses, numerous forks, knives and spoons.”
Joseph P. Brady
Silver Historian, 2007